I came across an interesting blog post by Jude Gomila in which he shares several ideas for improving air travel; an excerpt:

Take safety online

It would be silly if you had to recheck all safety tests with an independent agency before driving a car every single time. Having to watch the simple safety instructions every flight is a waste of time and energy for the passenger. No one even watches it anyway. We need to take this online and out of the cabin, making it a test that people hold a license for, rather like a driving license.

Streamline security

Global entry may be able to speed up border control for people in the US. I’d like to see a worldwide standard for this, where we can be prescreened to be a trusted global traveler in a trusted network. As you probably know, clear are speeding up security checks by making their own privatized security line. Visa and custom forms need to be taken online. People constantly don’t have pens to fill out these forms and they fill out similar information every time. These areas are probably the easiest areas to speed up. Even an array of iPads at border control with a data entry app could work. If people could fill out their visa forms from the entertainment terminal, you could have a standard laser printer on the plane that could print out the data on the standard forms, or better still from the passengers credentials in their Virgin online account.

Some of his ideas might not be practical (“…we should increase cabin height…” for instance), but almost all are interesting. Read the entire piece here: Reinventing the Airline Industry